Silvia Bächli Studio Visit, Art Basel 2025
June 2025
There are artists who speak in form.
And then there are those who speak in trace.
At this year’s Art Basel, Silvia Bächli’s studio didn’t shout—it listened. Her work, minimal and meticulous, holds a conceptual rhythm that reverberates far beyond the page. It is not the drawing that remains in your mind, but the conditions she creates for it to exist.
Her relationship to paper is foundational, intimate. Her father worked in a print shop, and it was there—among stacks—where she assembled her first paper magazine and began to understand the weight of material. But it is not nostalgia that drives her—it is freedom. Once a year, a local truck delivers a ton of paper to her studio. The abundance isn’t for display; it’s for risk. It frees her from the burden of a rather expensive €5 sheet from local shops with higher prices, something many artists know too well. To me, it was a touching glimpse into her innate humility.
With paper always at hand, she can try—fail—repeat. Again and again, until the trace becomes thought. Her practice is that of continuous decision-making; its simplicity is equally rigorous. And if one doesn’t work, the next one will—and if it doesn’t, there is always more paper. But each gesture must exist within her conceptual constructs, which marry color, environment, and time.
The process doesn’t end with the gesture. A mark is made. Then it is placed in her peripheral field—allowed to sit, in quiet, in light—until it begins to speak back. The studio, spacious and serene, becomes a field of meditation. Decision is delayed, not avoided. And what emerges is not control, but clarity.
Ten years ago, she shifted. Early in her career, she avoided repetition—fearing its limitations. But over time, repetition became her terrain. A conceptual commitment to rhythm. To working within a structure and evolving it inwardly.
“To repeat, and never be the same.”
That moment found me at the edge of something in myself.
I’ve lived by movement, by change—as a means of learning, of staying alert. But in her words, I felt the possibility of mastery through stillness. Of choosing my own conceptual architecture, and allowing it to evolve me.
“There is beauty in the transition,” she said.
A beautiful moment of acknowledgment.
She opened a drawer to show us her brushes—round, square, thick, clean—each placed with care. Next to them, childhood pastels she had just begun using again. That drawer was not just storage. It was memory. Not preserved, but active. In her hands, past and present become equal collaborators.
Her table sits at the heart of the room—like a press bed or altar. From there, everything begins. The paper, the light, the pause, the thought. Her essence is peaceful, almost translucent. Yet her discipline is tectonic. Her awareness, quiet and exacting.
This was more than a studio visit.
It was a lesson in how to see.
– Mirka S.